| What you want to do is develop a site that is built | | | | process. First you have to get a list of phrases |
| on a strong foundation of good keywords. The | | | | that get at least 300 searches per month. |
| better your keyword research is, the more | | | | In most niches, this will be pretty easy. Next, you |
| search engine traffic you are likely to attract. The | | | | need to check out the competition by searching |
| good news is, most of your competitors probably | | | | for each phrase in Google to see how many |
| don't know a lot about keyword research. | | | | other pages contain that phrase. I search for each |
| Unless you are trying to outrank Barnes & | | | | phrase both with and without quotes. Without |
| Noble or Amazon for the keyword "books", you | | | | quotes, I get an overall picture of competition. |
| should be able to push your site to the top for | | | | With quotes, I can see how many people are |
| many keywords in your niche. Fortunately, you | | | | using that exact phrase, which tells me how many |
| don't have to rank on the first page for a | | | | people I'm truly competing against. I'm going to |
| super-competitive keyword like "books" to make | | | | use the Google keyword tool: |
| money. In fact, you will make more money from | | | | My first goal is to get my preliminary list of |
| AdSense if you target more specific keywords. | | | | keywords. I'm going to show you an example. |
| If you rank for "books" and you suddenly get | | | | Let's use "aruba vacations", which I mentioned |
| tens of thousands of hits per day, you probably | | | | earlier in the book, as the niche. |
| won't be getting very many clicks. When | | | | I entered "aruba travel" and "aruba vacation" |
| someone searches for "books", they are generally | | | | (without quotes) into the search box and it came |
| looking for a mega bookstore where they can | | | | up with 124 keyword phrases. Many of those |
| buy very specific types of books. They may be | | | | have fewer than 300 searches per month, so I |
| looking for cookbooks, or fiction, or books about | | | | will eliminate those. Then I'm left with a list of |
| the history of Christianity, or books about how to | | | | approximately 40 phrases. Now I will take these |
| paint horses. But if you rank for "books" and all of | | | | phrases and enter them into Google both with |
| your AdSense ads are targeted toward the | | | | and without quotes. |
| general topic of "books", most people will just | | | | If you prefer, you can take a shortcut and only |
| back out and click a different site. | | | | enter them with quotes to get a picture of your |
| It's much better if you rank for a term like | | | | exact competition, but I prefer to see both. Any |
| "Christian books" or "Harry Potter books". This | | | | phrases with more than 100,000 competing pages |
| way, the traffic you get will see adsthat are | | | | when I search with quotes I will usually remove. |
| targeted specifically to the type of books they | | | | Sometimes I will go as high as 300,000 if I have a |
| were looking to buy, and they will be much more | | | | really good feeling about a niche. |
| likely to click them. Keyword research is pretty | | | | Also, you might want to keep the more |
| simple. What you want to do is develop a list of | | | | competitive phrases on hand in another list. If you |
| at least 10-20 phrases (and preferably more) that | | | | use up your less competitive phrases, you can |
| fit the following factors: A bare minimum of 300 | | | | always make pages that target the more |
| searches per month Fewer than 100,000 | | | | competitive phrases in the hopes that you might |
| competing pages Keyword research is a two step | | | | rank for them as your site grows. |